First timers from Washington! Great to have Bill Bigelman and John Stendra with us and have them get into the tuna bite at Bahia de los Muertos.

One of our favorite amigos! Firefighter Ken Campbell says La Paz is his “happy place” and he had a great week. He got his first sailfish off Cerralvo Island. They tried to revive the fish, but were unable and he donated all the meat to the pueblo. He fought the fish for 90 minutes on 20 pound test and tells us the fish was actually tangled and had lassoed itself into knots of line around it’s head. Also interesting because he was fishing deep down with weight to get away from the bonito on the surface!

I just found out that our amigo, Chuck Fiola, from Yakima WA didn’t catch these fish! His buddy, Cal Lambert from Denver caught the fish, but Cal walked away up the beach when the camera came out! This photo with Captain Gerardo is especially interesting because Chuck is holding a yellowfin tuna while Gerardo is holding a rainbow runner…related to yellowtail (cooler water fish!)

Captain Jorge protects his hands with the boat sponge and Wiley Randolph’s first sailfish! They got it on live bait and Wiley nicely released the fish after the photo. He got the fish in 30 minutes on a small bullito (bonito mated with a tuna).

John McVay comes every year to fish for a week and always does well. He’s posing with two handfuls of some of his yellowfin tuna.

It was a good week for sailfish. Steve Manney with amigo, Dana Murray and Capitan Adolfo hold up the large sailfish. It was Steve’s first and much of the meat was donated.

Brad Baker and Jim Adair with their first tuna. Jim, upheld the tradition, and ate the heart of his first tuna. “Tasted like copper!”

From San Rafael CA, Kris Honkola got a personal best striper and an assist from amigo, Jeff Klassens for the photo shoot on the beach at Muertos.

Yes! There are still wahoo in the water. Claudio put a shaft into this fat wahoo early in the week while freediving in the 90 degree water.

It’s not that there aren’t dorado around. It’s just that we don’t have many photos because the dorado are so small. However, Captain Victor took a moment to pose with one of the larger bull dorado of the week.

More of our good Washington guys with tuna…Jim Brower and Robert Larson fished 3 days with us in their yearly trip to La Paz.

Our friends Jeff Sakuda and Marianne Sugawara have been fishing with us for many years. They had some tougher fishing earlier in the week when we had rain storms, but did manage a few tuna to put in the box!

TUNA DORADO SAILFISH KEY UNPREDICTABLE FISHING

We’re about 3 or 4 weeks from the end of our primary season and I guess it’s about time I figure that I will never get a handle on what’s happening this season. I should just give in and give up trying to predict anything other than every day is different and this is an El Nino Year. It’s just fishing and just because something happened yesterday is no bellwether on what will happen today or tomorrow.

We had dark nights (really pretty sliver moon!) and great water conditions all week. But the fish, well, they were as erratic and unpredictable as always. There would be in one spot and go crazy one day. Next day, same spot, fish all over…and they would refuse every bait or lure in the water. Or, one boat would sit on a spot and all rods would be bent. The boat next to it couldn’t buy a bite. The next one over also bit. The one next to that one, struggling.

Or, one boat catching dorado. The next boat on a sailfish. The next one over on a pargo or cabrilla or yellowtail.

It has been that kind of a season. Erratic. Unpredictable. Great. Crappy. Unbelievable. Crummy. Pretty much anything you wanted to say. You just go fish. It’s surely not for lack of effort on the parts of the captains or the anglers. They’ve been going at it hard. It’s just been that kind of a crazy season.

LAS ARENAS/ BAHIA DE LOS MUERTOS

Again for the 2nd straight week, happy to say that the yellowfin tuna were the highlight. Football season for the first time in 2 years kept 8-20 pound fish around the pangas and anglers having fun.

Just two problems…

First, everyone knows about it now, so the waters are getting alot more traffic. Our boats. East Cape boats. La Ventana/ El Sargento boats. Commercial boats. Just like anywhere else in the world. Everyone finds the honey hole sooner or later. So, the numbers-per-rod are down. Most boats getting 1-5 tuna per day. Some better. Some worse.

The 2nd issue is that there’s a ton of bonito all over the place. It makes for great action, but after the first one or two, a big nuisance if you’re trying to get through the bonito to the tuna. As soon as a bait hits the water, it gets slammed. Lots of fun. Great on light tackle, but if you’re trying to put some fillets in the box, it makes it difficult.

By the way, the sardines are really really small. If you have #4 or #6 hooks…straight “J” style hooks to bring down (if you’re bringing your own tackle) that would be a bonus. Flurocarbon leader is also a plus.

The other highlight was that a number of our anglers got their first billfish this week as well. Some striped marlin hooked but also some unusually large sailfish were hooked in the same spots as the bonito/ tuna.

LA PAZ

This has been our go-to area just for action and filling the cooler because the small dorado have been everywhere all season. The only issue is that they weren’t as cooperative this week and the schools seem to be moving further and further out as the waters start cooling. Also, a few days there were dorado everywhere, but they just wouldn’t bite. It was hit or miss and every day there were different results. I’ve kinda given up thinking we’re gonna see larger fish this year.

Normally, our “small” dorado are 15-20 pounders. This year, we rarely see anything over 10 pounds.

MUCHAS GRACIAS!

We’ve been receiving fantastic donations for our schoolkids and the battered women’s shelter all year. Our anglers have brought in over 1000 pounds of donations just this year. Well, this past week we were completely overwhelmed and blown away by several hundred pounds more of much needed supplies of shoes…clothes…school supplies…hygiene items…toys…books…sporting goods. Just unbelievable. I regretfully, don’t have all the photos of everyone as some of the items were dropped off when we weren’t in the office. However, please know that we appreciate all of you and all your thoughtfulness!

Wiley Randolph and Ken Campbell with dozens of pairs of new kids and women’s shoes…school supplies…hygiene things for women…just bags and bags of things! Good shoppers!

Year-after-year regular good guys…Don Busse, Jim Adair and Brad Baker flank Jilly behind a table full of school supplies…(and a beer?) LOL

Mike and Dena Vonderahe with Heather and Mark Chism from Oregon had so much stuff packed into boxes we couldn’t unpack it all! It just tumbled out. Thanks folks!

Al Jones and Victronda Sheasby are here to visit us again this year and we appreciate all their great donations of clothes and school supplies!

Just having too much fun! Kevin Pereira and Kris Honkola from San Rafael CA got some warm clothes for the winter months (yes, it gets chilly here in Mexico) for the kids plus school supplies. I think pink is Kris’ color. Gracias, amigos!

I think Jill wants one of the dolls that Cal Lambert and Chuck Fiola brought down with school supplies and books for the kids! Cal is from Denver and Chuck comes to us from Yakima Washington.

NEW ROAD-FINALLY?

By the time you read this the new highway COULD be a reality. Right now, in La Paz, we have no direct flights from the United States, even though, La Paz is the capital of the State of Baja Sur. (Southern Baja). So, pretty much everyone must fly to Cabo San Lucas followed by a 3-4 hour drive up north to La Paz. It’s a pretty drive. But it’s tiresome. After an already long-day of travel, adding 3-4 hours of driving isn’t the most fun thing in the world.

However, they have completed a new highway that could cut that time IN HALF! Yes…down to about an hour-and-forty-minutes! The problem is, the Governor hasn’t done the official ribbon cutting ceremony! That’s the only thing holding it up! So, they powers-that-be are saying THIS is the WEEK when it could finally be open! We’ll keep you posted. It will surely be great to cut down all the travel time.